Day 5 - NaNo Word Count
- Details
- Written by: Administrator
- Hits: 7636
11,497.
Do novelists really count their words every day? I doubt it. Unless you're writing an article or short-story for publication, where word count is a key consideration, keeping a tally of words is a silly way to measure the quality of a story.
Of course, NaNo is different. NaNo is all about word count and process over product. It's been said that it takes about a month of repetition for a behavior to become habit. One of the purposes of NaNo is to encourage wanna be writers into the habit of writing.
If you can keep up a pace of 1600-2000 words a day for 30 days, preferably blocking the same set of hours each day, then writing will become habit. The habit of daily practice will improve your writing.
Today I closed with a NaNo word count of 11,497. This last 2000 words were really tough to pry out. I had many distractions; I lost direction. Today was a heavy dialogue day, which I find extremely difficult to write, especially because my inner critic is so adamant that I'll never live up to my expectations. My mind wandered over to chores that need to be done. Papers that should be filed. My fingernails that need trimming. Anything but scraping together that next line of dialogue.
The results are painfully unspectacular.
Despite the rough day, I will carry on, even laughing at what I've written because if I believed these words were the end and the best I could do, I'd surrender to my inner critic and cry.
Day 4, NaNo NaNo
- Details
- Written by: Administrator
- Hits: 7400
Today was another good writing day despite the fact that Chris decided to set his alarm for 4:30 AM so he could be awake while I'm writing. Though I love his company, his 9 year-old's propensity towards chatter didn't help my focus. Still, today I worked on character development and can see tension building between some of them. Tension is good. Essential, in fact.
9238 words, by the official NaNo count. And Chris is asleep on the sofa next to me.
Over the past couple of years I've been reading more fiction and trying to focus through a writer's eye. Expert use of well developed plot lines with clever, unexpected twists and sub-plots has always amazed - and intimidated - me. How do you outline all the little nuances of a story?
I suppose there are writers who do. Some who know their characters so well before they start a project that they know exactly how the story will begin, end, and foresee all the action in the middle.
Not me; at least, not yet. I think I finally understand, on a large scale, the concept of layering. For a scattered, somewhat ADD type like me, layering might just help make the leap between a finished project and the apprehension of starting one.
I'm thinking, too, that sub-plots will kind of take care of themselves. 9200 ~ words in to my story, I can see several areas of conflict, tension, and intersections between my characters that, I hope, will make this a proverbial page-turner.
Enjoying the ride!
Day 3 of NaNoWriMo
- Details
- Written by: Administrator
- Hits: 7453
My official word count is 7001, and today I was able to knock out nearly 3000 words in about two hours. That first 2000 word exercise was a killer - taking nearly 6 hours to compose and began with far more perspiration than inspiration. I'm so glad I pushed through that first day because the story is becoming much easier to write.
The characters are leading the way as they tell me who they are and what makes them tick. I'm learning to trust the process. When I started this project on Monday, I had no real clue how to stretch the simple bones of a story idea from my imagination to the page, nor how those bones could possibly develop into more than a blurb. The flesh of the story is in the development of the characters. They are the story. Just as the presumed coincidences of real life culminate to an event intersection point of two or more people, so will this story develop.
Make no mistake - what I've written so far is far from great - even good - writing. NaNo has handed me a pass to write a sh*tty first draft and I'm claiming it. November is for brain dumping; revisions will come later.
It's exciting; even exhilarating. What took me so long?
Page 19 of 20